


The Longest Night

by Bladesworn (Amerou)



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-22
Updated: 2009-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-04 23:34:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/35294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amerou/pseuds/Bladesworn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mage, a Templar, and the solstice-night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Longest Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rainfallen/Breve](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Rainfallen%2FBreve).



It is the eve of winter solstice, the Longest Night - a time of merry-making and the rebirth of the world, when there are no Harrowings and no violence and no _magic_ at all allowed in the Circle Tower for three entire _days_ \- and she is having him move _boxes_.

It could be worse, the Templar thinks irritably as he methodically moves crates of herbs and potions and books from storage, up two flights of stairs, across an entire spiral-layout floor plan and into her new quarters; he's not sure at first precisely _how_ it could be worse, but he is certain that the realm of possibility exists. During a few moments of consideration as he navigates the stairs for the umpteenth time, he decides that there _could_ be spiders in the storage level, or snakes, or abominations. (All three of these things are equally undesirable, each in their own unique way. One has never felt true panic until one has had a flatmate drop a spider down the back of one's neck, while being clad in armor that is almost _impossible_ to shed quickly without help.)

It could also be _better_; he _could_ be in the chapel, where the Knight-Commander is traditionally holding forth on the Chant in his deep resonant voice, standing the long vigil himself, symbolic of Templar duty. He _could_ be sitting in his quarters, reading or praying or polishing his armor, or watching the mages gather round the solstice-tree two floors down. He _could_ be in the circle of his fellows in the Templar common-room four floors down from here, a mug of hot spiced ale warming his hands, listening to old Alaric who was nearly out of his mind from lyrium tell the ancient stories of the solstice-night, while younger men crowded close and listened, rapt as when they were children and first heard the Chant.

Instead, he is humping crates across levels of the tower, but he cannot bring himself to be angry. It's _her_ who's asking him, after all, and as uneasy as the peace is between Templars and mages during the times of the Longest Night, he is loath to break it, though for more secret and personal reasons than merely maintaining the status quo.

She is new to her senior enchantership, and ever since he stood watch over her still form at her Harrowing years ago, he has practically been her own personal guardian. In the library, at the lunch mess, outside her door when the wind rails at the stones of the Tower so that it keens like a mother seeking a lost child - he is there, always, immovable, inexorable, and he _claims_ it is because he suspects her above all others of being at risk of erupting into heresy, but if the Knight-Commander suspects ulterior motives, he turns a blind eye to them.

And she always knows him on sight, even amidst a sea of Templars in formation, in identical armor and of identical stance and swagger, and he has yet to puzzle out exactly _how_.

So she asks him to move her books and supplies and thaumaturgical devices that he is unsure he wishes to wrap his brain around, and he does it without a second thought, because the crates are _heavy_ and magic is forbidden during these sacred times, and when the last box has found its way into her new and larger quarters, she smiles at him like sunlight from under a sheaf of hair streaked with braids and ribbons, and says, "I have something for you, in thanks."

Immediately he is on his guard, but he sees that there is a clay mug between her clever hands, steam wafting in gentle drifts from its depths, and he smells cinnamon and nutmeg and something that might be cardamom. "Your recipe?" he asks, because it is polite to fill the silence as he doffs his helmet and tucks it under an elbow, running the other hand through his hair. There are beads of sweat dripping down his neck and he is very aware that his face is flushed, but moving crates is _work_ and he is suddenly as thirsty as he had never been in his entire life.

"It's Antivan. I found it in one of Cook's codices," she smiles, holding out the mug with both hands. He takes it and sniffs it carefully, cautious of poison out of habit, but there is no acridity to the sweet scent, and she is watching him anxiously, as if desperate for his approval. He thanks her, too much the gentleman even as a Templar to disappoint her, and knocks the contents of the mug back in several long gulps.

It is not until the mug is nearly emptied that he tastes something like mercury and starlight in the back of his throat.

In certain quantities and mixed with certain ingredients, the effect of lyrium upon a Templar is almost immediate. The world tilts madly upon its axes, a hatter's daydream, and in between staring at the opalescent swirls of light around his head he is vaguely aware that she has taken the mug and his helm from him and set them carefully upon a nearby table. His tongue is suddenly glued to the roof of his mouth, and he wants to turn on her and say _you've drugged me, you've betrayed me, damned Antivan poisoners, see if I **ever** move boxes for **you** again_ and that last bit is _ridiculous_ but coherency by itself is difficult enough to achieve, what with the lyrium rapidly clogging the byways of his brain.

She is very calm as she leads him over to her cot, his mind fogged and his limbs moving independently of his will. "Sit," she commands, her form limned in a rainbow of shimmering colour, and he does, dizzied, his Chantry-ingrained reflex to obedience working against him; she stands before him, eyebrows knit and lips pressed together as if she contemplates a manner of great importance, and he is working to free the intelligence in his tongue when she puts a knee to either side of his armor-clad hips and laces her hands through his hair and -

He kissed a Chantry girl once, when he was fifteen and was dared by the other boys of the abbey to see what all the fuss was about, and he had come away from that experience with nothing more than hollow disappointment laying cold in the pit of his stomach. But meek little Chantry girls do not kiss like mages, all desperation and heat, and he is unsure if it's the lyrium igniting his blood or her lips but _Maker,_ it's like that long-laid hearth in his belly has found a spark to light it at last, and he doesn't want it to stop, ever. This is what it should be like, _this_ is what all the commotion is for, the warmth of her mouth on his, her fingers against his scalp, the sudden staccato of his heart against his ribcage as he sets his gauntleted hands to rest on her hips, and at last the formless vague shadow of _want_ takes shape and keen edge as it becomes _need_ -

(_Heretic_, a part of him thinks, cold and aloof and distant, _you will burn for this, there will be an accounting for your actions_; but the lyrium drowns it out, makes all sound and sensation multiply a thousandfold, and the part of him that knows this is _wrong _is for the moment thrown into a very small locked room in the back of his psyche.)

She pulls back when he arches up into the kiss, biting her lower lip as if she already regrets what she has done, and he just looks at her, really _looks_ at her, with a certain shuddering intensity as if he has never seen her before and will never do so again. Magic pulls the youth from its practitioners early - there are already lines around her mouth from laughter, grey hair streaking from her temples - but to him she is the most beautiful creature in all Thedas, and _that_ is not merely the lyrium talking. (Well, maybe partially. He is reasonably certain that she does not _usually_ have a halo of dancing white fireflies.)

She makes him wish he had the soul of a poet, instead of rough hands and a clumsy Templar's tongue.

Bells toll faintly from the south, across Lake Calenhad and through her window, announcing the tenth hour of the Longest Night.

"Will you be missed?" she asks him, cupping his cheeks in her warm hands, and oh, there is an entire _universe_ of questions that lay beneath that inquiry, and the foremost of these is _will you stay_, and part of him thinks he must be dreaming, this is a Fade-dream or a demon's test or - or _something._ All eloquence has abandoned him to the ravages of a drug more subtle than the one she slipped him in his cider. But there is yet another piece of him, a cunning dark shadow that is finding new freedom with the rest of his disciplined intellect veiled; and that part of him says, _The Commander will be in the chapel until dawn, and the others will be paying attention to Alaric's stories or the mages' antics, not to each other. One less Templar than usual will not be noticed._

The opportunity to act on _his_ wishes instead of the order's, just for a brief time, is almost as heady a draught as the lyrium-laced cider.

Ah, choices.

"No, I won't be missed," he answers faintly, utterly fascinated by the tender flesh where her jaw meets her neck (it is glowing, if his altered senses can be trusted, a beacon of light and heat) and she makes his choice for him, stripping him with soft touches of gloves and greaves, and the purple wrap that covers the flanchards protecting his thighs. He feels oddly naked as cold air hits his legs, long before the rest of him is laid bare - but state of mind and state of clothing veer ever closer to each other as her long fingers find the catches on his chestplate, prying him free of the metal casing with a small noise of triumph in the back of her throat. He keeps control of the situation long enough to help her lower the armor to the floor (it is so _very_ heavy, the mantle that the Templars wear) and then she sets a palm on his chest and pushes him flat to the cot after a brief shimmy backwards, the lower hem of her robes pooled around her thighs where she straddles his hips, her legs deliciously exposed, an unspeakable _pressure_ building in his lower half.

He has only seen her wear that _smirk_ in his dreams, and grinning shamelessly beneath the fall of her beribboned hair she pulls slack the laces on the corselet that hold her robes closed, discarding it out of hand to be tossed somewhere in another dimension, swallowed up by lyrium-dreams. The fabric of her robes sags strategically as they slide from her shoulders, creating a deep vee that angles across her bountiful chest, as if the cloth wants nothing more than to slither from her frame. He has only just begun to appreciate this new and _interesting_ view of her when she leans over him, her nipples taut and brushing his chest like butterfly wings, her mouth hungry on his jaw, his neck, teeth nipping at his ear. His hands slide up her thighs, briefly stymied by the flow of her robes, but she encourages him to bypass such impediments with an impatient growl and a pointed shrug that frees her from the constraints of propriety. He wants to take his time, he really does, he wants to commit her every curve and feature to memory, etching the exact angle of her hips and the soft weight of her breasts into his bones as a ward against harsher days - but she is in no mood for sweetness as she yanks his shirt up over his head to tangle his hands, and he finds that neither is he, every moment precious, such that there is no time to linger -

_Maker's breath, is the door locked?_ He doesn't remember, and as she is kissing her way down his chest he is rapidly _not caring_ if some well-meaning Templar or mage stumbles upon them, so long as she keeps _touching_ him like this. As she passes his left nipple, she marks the occasion with her teeth, which makes his back arch and his breath hitch, and the blood flows in spikes away from his brain as she continues downward, that evil little smile still lighting her face. He's paralyzed as her cheek grazes just below his navel, wicked delight dancing in her shaded eyes, and then she is watching his face when casually she flicks her nails across the bulge beneath his trouser-laces. His entire _world_ darkens and narrows in focus, his hips buck up almost against his will, and _Maker _but this woman is _evil _and if his hands weren't tangled up in his own shirt he'd.... he'd....

Nonchalant, she seizes his trouser-laces and yanks them loose, one crossed X at a time, and he would _swear_ that there are fallen stars blazing in her hair as she licks a hot wet line down the crease of his hipbones, his cheeks burning, breath shallow and head light, Maker above if all mages are such temptresses it is a _wonder_ the order had not fallen a hundred years ago. (And at that thought his training tries to make itself heard again, beating valiantly on mercury bars in a lyrium cage, but its knocking goes unheard and unheeded, the Templar is out of his _mind_ and has been since she laid hands on him.)

He frees his hands from their entrapping linen as she springs his manhood from the prison of his trousers, and what blood is not below his belt is painting his face and chest a mottled scarlet, his cheeks and ears burning as the mage so _coolly_ assesses her Templar's weaponry, her eyebrows in the rough vicinity of her hairline. There is a long, _awful _moment where he is terrified that he is either going to wake up or she is going to find some fault with him and pronounce him unfit, but there is her smile again, lazy and smug, and her long fingers wrap around him with such surety that it's almost frightening, but then she _tugs _and does something _amazing _with a flick of her wrist and he feels like he could bow right off of her cot. A thousand unrequited nights alone in his quarters is _nothing_ compared to the sweet agony of one single second under her clever ministrations, and he doesn't know he's gasping and making small deep-chested moans until she leans over him and muffles him with her own mouth, blindfolding him with the sweep of her hair, pressing her chest to his and giving him purchase for his seeking hands -

And then she lifts her head and plants a palm next to his shoulder, support for her weight as her hips slide forward in one sinuous movement, the tip of him brushes against the cleft of her thighs, and _Maker's breath she isn't wearing underwear!_ He hardly has time to consider the relevance of this fact, however, because she makes some minute adjustment with her free hand and he finds himself inches away and staring up into her lovely face as she eases herself down onto his length, and suddenly he is cross-eyed and groaning all over again, digging his fingers into her flanks in clumsy encouragement.

Slanting a demoness's grin across her lovely features, with coruscating lyrium-light tracing her every curve, she waits just long enough for his vision to come back into focus before she begins to move.

He can't help it; her nails raking across his ribs make him shudder like a leaf before a gale, and she is flexing muscles he didn't even know a woman _had_ and he's pressing his hips up into hers as much out of self-defense as reflex and desire, because there is no semblance of control here that he can maintain, his mage has him _cold _and he must follow her ancient rhythm or risk being swept away upon her tide. He's bruising her thighs with the strength in his fingers and she doesn't care, her head thrown back, spine arched and mewling soft kittenish noises in her throat, one hand drawing crimson lines in his flesh and the other upon her most secret place as she guides their tempo with her hips, onward and forward toward some unknowable crescendo. And Maker, if this could continue forever, he would _die_ a happy man, if she is some Fade-dream or a demon he would gladly give _everything_ he is for this one perfect moment of glory -

It is too much for virgin Templar flesh to withstand, and in the eternity between one hummingbird-heartbeat and the next, he is nothing at all but blazing light.

She collapses forward to rest her forehead against his shoulder, her hair veiling his face and sticking to his lips, their chests and shoulders heaving with great deep breaths of cold air, and when he can _move_ again it is to cup her cheeks in his rough, callused hands and whisper her name, over and over, like prayers to the Maker. She kisses the corner of his mouth, almost negligently, and rumbles his name into the side of his throat before she separates from him (he flinches briefly from the strange not-quite-pain of it) and molds herself bonelessly against his body, below his shoulder. There is an odd and unfamiliar languor that floods his frame, sapping his strength, making it so that he barely has the will to flick away stray bits of her hair that yet cling to his cheeks; idly, he teases loose one of her ribbons, because the lyrium makes it shimmer opalescently, like the scales of a fish, and because he does not know what else to do - he dangles it loosely before her nose, as if teasing a kitten with a piece of string.

The mage laughs, exhausted, but not so tired that she cannot turn on her shoulders and pluck the ribbon from his grasp, and in a trice she has wrapped it neatly about his wrist, with a bow as pretty as you please to hold it tight. He will find out later that its true colour is celadon-green, and it will remain a talisman worn at his wrist for much longer than the solstice-night; but for now, he stares at it fixedly, as though it holds the secrets of the universe, while the mage curls into him and wills her breathing to settle into even rhythm.

Eventually, into their silence comes the sound of bells from across the water; the eleventh hour of the Longest Night has crept up upon them, and the mage kisses the underside of his jaw and rolls from the cot to gather her robes, and she says, "You'd better go."

He does, once he is again dressed, staggering from the lack of her, and his altered world seems so much more dull and grey without the taste of her on his tongue.

xxxxx

It is so much more than a lightly-given trinket, to him; Greagoir wears the ribbon at his wrist, beneath his gauntlet and against the skin, until it tatters and fades. When after many long years pass and he fears its obliteration, he hides it in his desk where not even the boldest of mages or Templars dares to look. He is become the Knight-Commander, after all, the most feared figure of authority in the Tower, a paragon of virtue and discipline, and he is beyond reproach, beyond questioning.

It also serves to remind him, in darker times, that temptation seeks to topple those who have the farthest to fall.

The ribbon stays in his drawer until his death at the eleventh hour on the eve of the Longest Night, cold and alone in the swaying stone Tower, dreaming lyrium dreams of Wynne.

**Author's Note:**

> For Secret Swooper Exchange, my gift to Rainfallen/Breve. Official companion piece to Crisium's "What We Become".


End file.
